Mummascribbles – A one to one birth chat with Vesta Birth & Parenting – Mummascribbles

When I found out that we were expecting baby number two, one of my first thoughts was how I’d be giving birth. For a lot of people the assumption is that it will be a natural birth but for many, we are thrown into a quandary because first time round we had a csection. We immediately get a choice of whether to try for a vbac (vaginal birth after c-section) or to have an elective cesarean. I have mentioned on here before about how I was all for a repeat section but how after having my appointment at the vbac clinic I was swayed into very much wanting to give birth naturally. At 30 weeks, that is now still very much the case and I still want to do everything I can to help that.  

Even though the vbac clinic was very helpful, being based at the hospital I am due to give birth in, it was of course very one sided. Since having that appointment and becoming a member of the vbac support group on Facebook, I realised that there were a few things that I was told that started to play on my mind – that maybe they weren’t the best thing for getting the outcome I want. 

When a fellow blogger mentioned that there was a birth clinic that were looking for bloggers to work with, I absolutely knew that I had to get involved.  We aren’t doing any classes this time round because we did NCT last time but I really felt like I needed a bit of a refresher and to also talk a bit more in depth about vbac with someone outside of the hospital.  

When I got in touch with Sarah at Vesta Birth & Parenting, it was like I’d hit the jackpot. She was immediately lovely and sent me over the form that she would ask any new client to fill in. It asked for details about my pregnancy and asked what I wanted to discuss. When I sent it back to her complete, all was fine, she was happy to cover everything and booked me in for the following week.  

Sarah is based up in Leeds and we are down in Hertfordshire so this meet wasn’t going to be in person.  The great thing about Vesta is that it doesn’t matter where you are in the UK, you can still have classes with her via Skype or via the phone.  

So at 8pm last Wednesday, we were sat down on our sofa having our one to one session. 

Sarah went through everything that I sent her. It was a slightly different session to what she would normally do because I did send her quite a list of what I wanted to cover because I really wanted to focus on the vbac side of things. 

For a whole hour (and fifteen minutes actually because we accidently caused her to overrun), we talked about everything in my list. From the best birthing positions to her top tip breathing techniques, from putting my mind at rest about the vbac risk of rupture to feeling more in control of saying no to constant fetal monitoring. We spoke about it all and at the end I felt so much more in control of my birth choices and what I want and what I need to do when the time comes.  The other half was equally as informed and said how helpful it had been from his perspective.  

While we were on the phone, Sarah had me writing loads of notes and mentioning resources that I could read that would help me even further. Google can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack so to have someone with her knowledge point me in the right direction was brilliant.  

A couple of hours after the session at around 11pm, Sarah dropped me an email following up on everything we had spoken about, making reference to the things that she thought were probably most important to me and also sending me the links that she had mentioned. It showed me how dedicated to her job and her clients she is when she was still working so late in the day.  

I am pleased that I had this chance to have a chat with Sarah about my concerns and my hopes for labour and I am really thankful that she gave me this opportunity to do so. I’m not sure that I would have discovered her if it wasn’t for my blogging buddies and I’d still be sitting here with lots of thoughts in my head.

Instead, I am going to work out my birth plan and make sure everything I want to happen is included within it. I am in particular going to speak to the midwives about the monitoring that they use and how active I wish to be in labour. 

Of course, I need baby to turn into the correct position in order for a natural birth to happen but there is still time yet and he’s definitely had a shift around in the last few days after I’d been complaining about how painful it was having a transverse baby. Fingers crossed that when I go to the midwives next week we find him head down! 

We were given a complimentary hour long session with Sarah at Vesta Birth & Parenting for the purpose of this review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.